Public comment closes this month on EPA’s new mercury rules

January 30 marked the beginning of a 60-day public comment period on the Environmental Protection Agency's new rules designed to reduce mercury emissions. The primary source of mercury emissions is coal-fired power plants.

The EPA drew the ire of environmental groups in Texas and across the country in December when it announced new rules for coal-burning plants. For years, the agency has been drafting guidelines that would have reduced emissions by 90 percent nationally. Now, instead, the agency has proposed a cap-and-trade plan that sets a national emissions limit and allows cleaner plants to sell pollution credits to dirtier plants. While the plan is expected to reduce the nation-wide emissions total by 70 percent (ten years later than the original plan), environmental groups have argued the EPA left hotspots such as Texas virtually unprotected.

Texas leads the nation in mercury emissions, with 8,992 lbs released from coal-fired plants across the state in 2001.Twelve state water bodies, including the Gulf of Mexico, are under health-department advisories because of mercury contamination. The Texas Department of Health also warns against the heavy consumption of species high on the food chain, such as swordfish, orange roughy, and tuna.

The EPA is accepting public comments via mail email or facsimile until March 30. Submission information can be found at
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/comment.htm.

Groups criticize plan to revive Gulf snapper

Federal plans designed to help replenish the Gulf of Mexico with red snapper are being criticized on grounds they fail to ensure survival of the species.

Red snapper stocks have declined in recent years and some environmental
groups and others say overfishing and the shrimping industry are to blame.
The Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council wants to restore the fish to 20 percent of its spawning potential within three decades.

While the council has established five alternatives to address the red snapper shortage, the Gulf Restoration Network, a collection of fifty environmental and social advocacy organizations, said there's only one way to solve the problem.

The network believes something needs to be done to stop shrimping boats from unintentionally collecting juvenile red snapper in their trawl nets.
The network endorses an alternative for restoration of the species that includes maintaining the current total allowable catch at 9.12 million pounds while relying on an anticipated reduction of shrimping industry activities in the Gulf.

In 1996, the allowable catch was raised from 6 million pounds per year. This is a ceiling members of the Gulf Restoration Network would like to see reinstated. Red snapoer was classified as "depleted" by the Fisheries Service in 1997.

The network said the council failed to address the problem in some of its alternatives and at least three of the proposed plans do not meet current fishery laws because red snapper in the Gulf would not be replenished by set deadlines. Biologists with the US Department of Health said if the snapper population is not increased by 20 percent, the species may not remian viable in the wild.

Sierra Club seeks to halt local ‘healthy forest’ logging project

The Houston Sierra Club filed an appeal in late January for a stay of the decision by the US Forest Service and Sam Houston National Forest to log on more than 8,000 acres of the preserve.

Among the group's more serious charges is that the plan, one of several pilot projects around the nation to test the Bush administration’s controversial Healthy Forest Initiative, violates the National Environmental Protection Act.
The Houston Sierra Club's forestry chair, Brandt Mannchen, said the Forest Service erred when it issued an environmental assessment that found no significant impacts from logging in the Four Notch/Boswell Creek Watershed of the national forest.

He accused the Forest Service of withholding information, such as the number of trees to be removed, in order to avoid having to issue a more complete environmental impact statement.

The Sierra Club also claims the agency violated NEPA by failing to assess the cumulative impacts of logging on the preserve or to consider alternative actions.

Though confident in the group’s standing to challenge the project, Mannchen said it is unlikely a stay will be granted. In ten years of filing appeals in an effort to protect the national forest, the Sierra Club hasnever won an appeal.
Making things harder, he said, are new rules surrounding public input on forest management.

One of the central arguments against the Healthy Forest Initiative is that it restricts citizens' ability to challenge federal forest policy. This is the first time the Sierra Club has appealed a logging project under the new rules. Mannchen said he still has not received information he sought through a Freedom of Information Act filed more than one year ago.

"Claims that (the Forest Service) are conducting an open process are shallow," Mannchen said. "They don’t want us involved in the process at all."

Historic water decisions currently in the works

A state senate committee held its first meeting in Austin last month to discuss water issues looming ever larger in Texas.

The senate select committee on water met to adopt rules and set the agenda that will ultimately inform the 2005 legislature's approach to state water management. Victoria Republican Ken Arbrister serves as committee chair.

The committee was charged by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst with examining a broad range of issues relating to the management of both surface and ground water, including the rule of capture, inter-basin transfers, monitoring desalination plants, the regional water planning process, and water rights.

The most contentious issue facing the committee is likely to be water rights. A subcommittee on the lease of state water rights, was formed largely in reaction to deals already in the works by the General Land Office.

One potential deal would allow a Midland-based company to lease groundwater rights on state-owned land in West Texas. The other would involve the GLO's entering into an agreement with WaterTexas to supply water to Central Texas. A third proposal involves the pumping and piping of groundwater from the Texas Panhandle to other parts of the state. Some senators balked at the precedent-setting deals being negotiated without legislative oversight. In a letter to state land commissioner Jerry Patterson, Fraser urged the agency to hold off on negotiations with private entities until the subcommittee could examine the proposals. He argued that the agency's actions would violate the spirit of Senate Bill 1, which in 1997 created sixteen regional water planning districts throughout the state to ensure local control of water planning decisions.

Representatives of the Department of Agriculture, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Water Development Board, and the Parks and Wildlife Department also attended the meeting.

The committee's report, which could be the basis of new senate laws on water management, is due out next December.